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Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton [pdf]

nobelprize.org

71–80 of 876 posts

Re: Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton [pdf]

#71
post #6

"This year’s laureates used tools from physics to construct methods that helped lay the foundation for today’s powerful machine learning." Does this mean if I'd use a deep understanding of birds to design way more aerodynamic airplanes, I could get the Nobel prize in physiology/medicine? Don't get me wrong, their work is probably prize worthy, but shouldn't the Nobel prize in physics be awarded for discoveries in the…

Kahneman was awarded Nobel prize in economic sciences even though his work was, in fact, all about psychology.

Re: Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton [pdf]

#72
post #52
post #6

"This year’s laureates used tools from physics to construct methods that helped lay the foundation for today’s powerful machine learning." Does this mean if I'd use a deep understanding of birds to design way more aerodynamic airplanes, I could get the Nobel prize in physiology/medicine? Don't get me wrong, their work is probably prize worthy, but shouldn't the Nobel prize in physics be awarded for discoveries in the…

Hm, they have to fit them into Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, Literature, or Peace. I guess physics is the closest they can get without a gross missplacement? (Although you might be able to absue literature for LLMs?)

They dont have to give them a nobel prize. They have not advanced any of those areas.

Re: Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton [pdf]

#73
post #15

I think this is the Royal Academy of Sciences way to admit that Physics as a research subject has ground to a halt. String theory suffocated theoretical high energy physics for nearly half a century with nothing to show for it, and a lot of other areas of fundamental physics are kind of done.

My sense is that we might have reached the limits of what we can do in high-energy or fundamental physics without accessing energy levels or other extreme states that we currently can't access as they are beyond our capacity to generate.

From what I've read (not a professional physicist) string theory is not testable unless we can either examine a black hole or create particle accelerators the size of the Moon's orbit (at least). Many other proposed theories are similar.

There is some speculation that the hypothetical planet nine -- a 1-5 Earth mass planet predicted in the far outer solar system on the basis of the orbits of comets and Kuiper Belt / TNO objects -- could be a primordial black hole captured by the solar system. A black hole of that mass would be about the size of a marble to a golf ball, but would have 1-5g gravity at the distance of Earth's radius.

If such an object did exist it would be within space probe range, which would mean we could examine a black hole. That might get us un-stuck.

If we can't do something like that, maybe we should instead focus on other areas of physics that we can access and that have immense practical applications: superconductivity, condensed matter physics, plasmas / fusion, etc.

Re: Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton [pdf]

#74
It’s time to consider adding computer science as a category for the Nobel Prize. They have already been awarded prizes for economic sciences and peace, so why not computer science? It's not the same as physics, and its impact on modern life is undeniable

Re: Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton [pdf]

#75
post #15

I think this is the Royal Academy of Sciences way to admit that Physics as a research subject has ground to a halt. String theory suffocated theoretical high energy physics for nearly half a century with nothing to show for it, and a lot of other areas of fundamental physics are kind of done.

Even Sheldon Cooper stopped researching string theory at one point.

Re: Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton [pdf]

#77

What bizarre choice. Hinton’s work has nothing to do with physics. Nobel prize jumping on the bandwagon, just like they did for mRNA after covid. At least that was related to medicine. The first 2 paragraphs of the linked pdf read like a joke. Like it’s a parody announcement.

Boltzmann machine does quote physics as its inspiration, they didn't award him for his work in BP and stuff.

But I agree, this feels like a stretch.

Re: Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton [pdf]

#78
post #66

As a physicist, my reaction to this is how bizarre is that. Maybe he deserves a nobel prize but in physics? Also arguing that NN is used in physics so we can argue nobel prize is okay is like asking for Stephan Wolfram to be awarded Nobel prize for Mathematica which is much more used in physics as a tool. And he is a physicist and had contributions to the field of numerical relativity (The reason he created Mathemati…

It feels a bit like the field of physics claiming the invention of AI, where we all know that mathematics and/or CS deserve the honor.

Re: Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton [pdf]

#79
Most commenters here don't know that Boltzmann machines and associative memories existed in condensed matter physics long before they were used in cognitive science or AI.

The Sherrington–Kirkpatrick model of spin glass is a Hopfield network with random initialization.

Boltzmann machine is Sherrington–Kirkpatrick model with external field.

This is price in physics given to novel use of stochastic spin-glass modelling. Unexpected, but saying this is not physics is not correct.

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